During World War I several farsighted European entrepreneurs, emboldened by wartime progress in aviation, envisioned the possibilities of postwar airline travel. For many months after the war, normal rail travel in Europe remained problematic and irregular because of the shortage of passenger equipment and the destruction of tracks and bridges. In addition, chaotic political conditions in central and eastern Europe often disrupted schedules. The situation opened many possibilities for launching airline routes. Although few airfields existed, aircraft of the postwar era could and did use relatively short sod runways for years, meaning that locating suitable airports near most cities was not the formidable engineering challenge that emerged in subsequent decades. Characteristically, organizers of the first postwar airlines relied on stocks of inexpensive surplus military planes, especially bombers, such as the De Havilland DH-4, that could be modified to accommodate passengers and mail. Two basic types of piston engines powered the typical fabric-covered biplanes of the early postwar era. In-line engines, with cylinders aligned one behind the other or positioned in two banks in a V-type installation, required a radiator and the circulation of a liquid coolant. Radial engines, with cylinders arranged in a circle around the crankshaft, had numerous small fins on the cylinder that radiated heat to the passing airstream in order to keep the engine cool. These relatively straightforward piston-engine designs made long-range flights possible and opened a new era of passenger travel.

The headliners

Although airlines ran newspaper advertisements after World War I, the biggest aviation headlines belonged to fliers in relatively primitive piston-engine aircraft that challenged the Atlantic and transcontinental distances. In May 1919, a U.S. Navy Curtiss NC-4 (successor to the Curtiss Model E flying boat) made it from Newfoundland to Portugal by way of the Azores Islands before flying on to Great Britain, compiling 54 hours 31 minutes in the air over its 23-day trip (see photograph). The following month, former British Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots John Alcock and Arthur Brown made the first nonstop crossing of the Atlantic, requiring 16 hours 28 minutes for the journey from Newfoundland to Ireland in a Vickers Vimy bomber (see photograph).

By 1924 the U.S. Army had completed plans to make the first aerial circumnavigation of the world, sending a quartet of single-engine Douglas “World Cruisers” westward toward Asia. These fabric-covered biplanes featured interchangeable landing gear—replacing wheels with floats for water landings. One plane crashed in Alaska, forcing the two-man crew to hike out of a snowbound wilderness. Near the end of the expedition, a second aircraft, en route to Iceland, went down between the Orkney and Faroe islands. With support from the U.S. Navy, U.S. State Department, and overseas American officials during an odyssey of 23,377 miles (37,622 km) that consumed 175 days, the remaining pair of planes arrived back in Seattle. All this happened before Charles Lindbergh, flying a single-engine Ryan monoplane, made his nonstop solo flight in 33 hours 30 minutes from New York to Paris in 1927. Lindbergh’s flight, in particular, demonstrated the essential reliability of improved radial engines.

In Britain, overland flights connecting colonial interests down the length of Africa drew considerable attention. Departing London, another pair of ex-RAF pilots battled capricious winds, sudden storms, equatorial updrafts, and assorted adventures before arriving at Cape Town after 45 days and three planes. Alan Cobham repeated the feat in a single-engine commercial plane, surveying a route for Imperial Airways Ltd. from 1925 to 1926. Other British pilots persevered in reaching Australia by way of India (brothers Ross and Keith Smith, 1919) and across the Pacific (Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, 1928). The challenge of polar flights also engaged a number of daring fliers. Piloting a Fokker trimotor, Richard Byrd made claim to the first flight over the North Pole in 1926, followed by his pioneering expedition with a Ford Motor Company trimotor over the South Pole in 1929.

The 1930s brought a new round of record flights by Americans. In 1931, with navigator Harold Gatty, Wiley Post piloted a Lockheed Vega 5B monoplane (named Winnie Mae for Post’s daughter) around the world in slightly less than 8 days 16 hours. Two years later, with the aid of an autopilot, Post broke his world record during a solo flight of 7 days 19 hours. In 1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to complete a solo transatlantic flight. Five years later, during a global attempt, she disappeared somewhere over the Pacific. Aviator and industrialist Howard Hughes, piloting a twin-engine Lockheed Model 14 (similar to Earhart’s Lockheed 5B Vega airplane) with a four-man crew, completed a global flight in 1938 in the record time of slightly more than 3 days 19 hours. Flights like these demonstrated aviation’s ability to overcome geographic barriers and shrink time-distance relationships.

In addition to long-distance records, speed records continued to rise. For example, the Schneider Trophy races, conducted in Europe between 1913 and 1931, pitted single-engine racing planes equipped with floats against each other. With entrants carrying the colours of their respective countries, considerable international prestige and technological recognition was attached to the outcome. Designers focused on high-performance engines and streamlined fuselages. By the early 1930s, successful British racers from Supermarine, reaching about 340 miles (550 km) per hour, were contributing to the designs that led to the legendary Spitfire fighters of World War II. Behind the headlines, the collective technology and operational know-how of the record-seekers contributed to modern airline travel.

The first airlines

One of the earliest airline organizations, a British group called Air Transport and Travel, Ltd., acquired several Airco D.H.4a VIII single-engine planes (designed by Geoffrey De Havilland), powered by 350-horsepower Eagle V-type engines from Rolls-Royce Ltd., and modified them to include an enclosed cramped space in the fuselage with room for two adventurous passengers. The pilot’s cockpit, atop the fuselage, remained open. The company’s inaugural flight occurred on Aug. 25, 1919, when the plane flew from London to Paris with its sole passenger, an enterprising newspaper reporter. The service caught on and competitors soon followed. Handley Page Transport, Ltd., made use of the manufacturing company’s wartime twin-engine bombers, converting them to haul up to 14 passengers, who lounged in comfortable wicker chairs. These slow but roomy aircraft established a tradition of ornately embellished interiors and spacious surroundings—at the sacrifice of aerodynamic efficiency and high speeds—on early European airlines. Given the lack of navigational aids and the primitive instrumentation of the era, accidents invariably occurred, and passengers became used to delays caused by the notoriously foul winter weather in England. Pilots had to depend on luck and quick thinking when they were caught in unexpected atmospheric conditions. Approaching London in the fog, one British pilot suddenly realized he had drifted too close to the ground when a church steeple loomed out of the mist at his eye level. Fortunately, he noticed that express trains speeding toward London left a visible furrow in the dense fog bank, and he gratefully followed this phenomenon into the city, where he found improved conditions for landing. By 1924, with government support, independent airlines in Britain had consolidated into one entity, Imperial Airways Ltd., as a means to compete with the heavily subsidized French airlines in Europe.

The British also used airlines to knit together elements of their far-flung empire. During the 1920s, Imperial Airways mounted operations in Africa and the Middle East. Across trackless stretches of sparsely inhabited desert, creative surveyor crews shrewdly drove cars and trucks to create a visible track for pilots to follow; in some areas, they plowed furrows in the ground. Into the late 1930s, standard equipment on these routes was the stately Handley Page H.P.42, a biplane having a wingspan of 130 feet (40 metres) and four 490-horsepower Bristol Jupiter engines. Depending on seating arrangements, 24 to 38 passengers cruised along at about 100 miles (160 km) per hour over the plane’s 500-mile (800-km) range. The airline scheduled several days (including overnight stops) to travel from London to the Cape of South Africa by air, compared with some weeks by steamship. The route’s clientele characteristically included well-placed colonial officials and wealthy business travelers who expected first-class service. Consequently, the H.P.42’s passenger cabin featured dimensions nearly equal to the size of a Pullman railway car, and patrons appreciated plush wall-to-wall carpeting and a stand-up bar. Attentive stewards served seven-course meals.

France also had territorial possessions in Africa as well as important business interests in Latin America. Consequently, French airlines ran along the Mediterranean coast of Spain, over to Morocco, and down the western coast of Africa as far as Dakar, Seneg. The routes took planes and crews over some of the most inhospitable areas of northwest Africa, where native tribesmen maintained strong prejudices against Europeans. Forced down in the desert, some French airmen were killed, and others were carted off in cages to be held as hostages for ransom. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the famed aviator and author, became successful as a field manager in Africa, donning native garb and negotiating peace with local tribal chiefs. A bewildering variety of planes from Henri Farman, Louis-Charles Bréguet, Pierre Latécoère, and others equipped domestic and international airlines. By the 1930s, the French had also established operations in South America and begun to experiment with mail deliveries across the South Atlantic.

In 1919 , The the Netherlands organized a new airline, KLM, and began service between London and Amsterdam using aircraft built by Anthony Fokker. (KLM now proudly claims the title of the world’s oldest continuously operating airline.) By 1930, KLM offered weekly service to Batavia (now Jakarta), the colonial capital of the Dutch East Indies, and competed with Imperial Airways in the Far East. Pioneering air services also sprang up in Africa, Asia, and Australia.

Germany, prevented by the Treaty of Versailles from developing military aircraft, poured considerable effort into civilian designs. The German government also gave its blessing to the expansionist plans of Deutsche Luft Hansa (now Deutsche Lufthansa Ag), formed in 1926. Hugo Junkers’s firm supplied a steady stream of low-wing single- and three-engine planes, clad in corrugated metal, that survived for decades in obscure corners of the world. Meanwhile, German airliners became regular callers throughout central and eastern Europe, with routes that extended as far east as Moscow. Other segments of Lufthansa covered Scandinavia and the Baltic; still others ran to the eastern Mediterranean and down to Baghdad. By the mid-1930s, Germany operated the largest commercial airline network in Europe.

Out of the chaos of World War I, Imperial imperial Russia emerged as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The communist regime soon seized on aviation as an icon of a new technical world to be shaped by the industrial proletariat. Aeroflot, the state airline, not only served propaganda purposes but subsequently emerged as an indispensable medium for rapid transportation and a visible means of knitting together the sprawling, divergent regions of the Soviet Union. Although the Soviet regime occasionally purchased western technology, its commissars emphasized the use of indigenous equipment in order to be free of invidious capitalistic influences. Consequently, Soviet engine and aircraft design bureaus, like that run by Oleg Antonov, turned out hundreds of planes for use on Aeroflot’s vast internal airway system.

From airmail to airlines in the United States

Although the American experience sometimes reflected European trends, it also demonstrated clear differences. Under the auspices of the U.S. Post Office, an airmail operation was launched in 1918 as a wartime effort to stimulate aircraft production and to generate a pool of trained pilots. Using Curtiss JN-4H (“Jenny”) trainers converted to mail planes, the early service floundered. After the war, shrewd airmail bureaucrats obtained larger American-built De Havilland DH-4 biplanes with liquid-cooled Liberty engines from surplus military stocks. Their top speed of 80 miles (130 km) per hour surpassed the 75 miles (120 km) per hour of the Jenny, allowing mail planes to beat railway delivery times over long distances. By 1924, coast-to-coast airmail service had developed, using light beacons to guide open-cockpit planes at night. Correspondence from New York now arrived on the west coast in two days instead of five days by railway. This savings in time had a distinct impact on expediting the clearance of checks, interest-bearing securities, and other business paper with a time-sensitive value in transfer between businesses and financial institutions.

Having established a workable airmail system and a considerable clientele, the Post Office yielded to congressional pressures and, with the Contract Air Mail Act of 1925, turned over the mail service to private contractors. The following year, the Air Commerce Act established a bureau to enforce procedures for the licensing of aircraft, engines, pilots, and other personnel. The former act stimulated design and production of advanced planes to compete with rival carriers; the latter reassured insurance companies, private investors, and banks that safety standards would be enforced. With these elements in hand, American aviation rapidly progressed. Ironically, at the same time that European countries organized subsidized national flag lines and followed practices that often discouraged innovation in the design of airliners, the United States turned over civil aviation to commercial operators, where aggressive competition accelerated significant developments in aviation technology and aircraft performance.

For one thing, manufacturers of airplane motors began a significant period of development in modern piston engines. Because liquid-cooled in-line engines offered less frontal surface, they were often favoured by military designers. With these engines, aircraft could be streamlined to improve speed but with a trade-off in complexity and weight because of the requisite coolant, coolant lines, radiator, and associated pumps. Air-cooled radial designs, in contrast, achieved relative simplicity, reliability, and comparatively light weight at the cost of more air resistance (creating drag) because of their blunt shape. In 1928, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) announced its famous cowling for radial engines. It not only smoothed airflow around the engine, substantially reducing drag, but also enhanced the cooling of the cylinders. With their dependability and ease of maintenance, radial engines became the type most favoured by designers of American air transports. The Curtiss-Wright Corporation (formed from the merger of Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company and Wright Aeronautical in 1929) produced a series of Whirlwind and Cyclone radial engines; Pratt & Whitney Aircraft launched its Wasp designs. Many of these American radial engines powered airplanes built overseas. By the end of the 1930s, innovations such as variable-pitch propellers, superchargers (to enhance high-altitude engine performance), and high-octane fuels had contributed to dramatically improved performance in both liquid-cooled and air-cooled radial engines.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the U.S. Post Office instituted payment formulas that favoured aircraft large enough to carry passengers as well as mail. A rising volume of research reports from the NACA facilitated many improved aircraft designs. The result was a swift increase in larger planes with improved radial engines and a shift from biplanes to trimotor monoplane transports marketed by a subsidiary of Ford and by the European builder, Anthony Fokker, who had set up shop in the United States.

Largely owing to airline rivalry, American technology had already taken a major step forward with the introduction of the Boeing Company Model 247 airliner, which cruised at about 180 miles (290 km) per hour and entered service with United Airlines, Inc., in 1933. With its all-metal stressed-skin construction (which used the metal skin covering itself to carry aerodynamic loads), retractable gear, two 550-horsepower Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engines, and cowlings inspired by NACA research, the 10-passenger Model 247 seemed to be head-and-shoulders above competitive aircraft.

Shortly before the 247 began flying, a Fokker trimotor of Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. (TWA), crashed in a Kansas farm field. Everybody aboard died, including the University of Notre Dame’s revered football coach Knute Rockne. Subsequent investigation of the crash raised questions about structural weakness in the plane’s main wooden-wing spar. Controversy about “wooden airplanes” and criticism of the Fokker plane generally gave trimotor airliners a bad image. When TWA asked manufacturers to submit designs for a replacement, Douglas Aircraft Company (later McDonnell Douglas Corporation) responded with an all-metal twin-engine airliner. The DC-2, with an advanced NACA cowling, refined streamlining, and other improvements, mounted Wright Cyclone engines and carried 14 passengers, surpassing the Boeing 247 in every way. Significantly, leading European airlines such as KLM acquired the new Douglas transport, beginning a trend for European operators to buy American equipment. A subsequent model, the legendary DC-3, entering service in 1936, mounted 1,000-horsepower Cyclone or Wright Wasp radial engines, cruised at 185 miles (300 km) per hour, and carried 21 passengers—double the capacity of the Boeing 247. By 1939, with superior seat capacity, performance, and ancillary refinements, DC-3 transports already were carrying 90 percent of the world’s airline traffic.

While the Douglas transports dramatically improved air travel within the United States and along European routes, airline entrepreneurs kept looking for a vehicle for transoceanic travel. Many in the 1930s still believed that huge gas-filled airships would be the key. Germany built diesel-powered hydrogen-filled airships, or dirigibles, such as the Hindenburg, which flew North Atlantic schedules between Europe and the United States during the summer months. American Airlines, Inc., publicized special schedules that allowed DC-3 passengers to make transatlantic connections with the Hindenburg’s terminus in New Jersey. This short-lived arrangement ended with the Hindenburg’s tragic and fiery destruction upon its arrival from Europe to open the 1937 travel season. Plans for utilizing dirigibles as passenger liners quickly faded.

That left flying boats. Pan American World Airways, Inc. (Pan Am), purchased a number of designs from the Russian-born American engineer Igor Sikorsky. Pan Am operated them on overwater routes in the Caribbean region, often saving weeks of travel time when compared with steamship and railway connections. By the late 1930s, American manufacturers such as the Martin Company (now the Martin Marietta Corporation), Sikorsky, and Boeing were all producing very large four-engine flying boats intended for service over the Atlantic and Pacific. In 1935, using islands strung across the Pacific, Pan Am completed installation of stopover passenger facilities and its own radio communications and meteorological network (see photograph). With Martin flying boats, most flights carried mail, along with occasional government or business passengers who could pay the high fares. Inaugural departures occasioned considerable fanfare. In 1939 Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, smashed a bottle of champagne over the bow of an imposing Yankee Clipper flying boat to launch scheduled airmail and luxury passenger service across the Atlantic to Europe. These promising, if expensive, travel innovations were soon curtailed by wartime conditions in Asia and Europe. In any case, progress in long-range land-based four-engine airliners represented advanced engineering that would have soon displaced flying boats.

Fortuitously, the widespread boundaries of the United States contained a growing number of urban complexes with intervening distances that made airline service a desirable option. American transport designs tended to favour more speed for time-conscious passengers. In comparison, airways within the closer boundaries of western Europe favoured short-haul service, often trading speed for luxury, even on longer colonial routes where state subsidies deflected technological competition.

Boeing’s Stratoliner, a pathbreaking transport that featured a pressurized cabin, entered service in 1940. Pressurization enabled airliners to fly above adverse weather, permitting transports to maintain dependable schedules and giving passengers a more comfortable trip. Moreover, at higher altitudes, airliners actually experienced less atmospheric friction, or drag, enhancing their performance and fuel efficiency. Only a few Stratoliners entered service before World War II led Boeing to focus on building bombers.

Meanwhile, Douglas had introduced the DC-4. Although it was unpressurized, it possessed a comparable performance to the Stratoliner and could carry more passengers. Also, the DC-4 had a tricycle landing gear (unlike the Stratoliner’s conventional tail wheel), which facilitated boarding of passengers, improved the pilots’ view of the runway and surrounding airport environment, and enhanced the plane’s takeoff characteristics. The DC-4 achieved production status (as the C-54) during the war as the U.S. Army Air Forces’ principal long-range transport. Late in the conflict, it was joined by the Lockheed L-049 Constellation (instantly identifiable by its triple vertical fins), originally designed in 1939 as a commercial airliner that blended a pressurized fuselage, tricycle landing gear, and other state-of-the-art features. Characteristics of these sophisticated civilian planes gave the United States a major advantage in postwar airliner competition.

The aeronautical infrastructure

The impressive development of airlines and scheduled air travel rested heavily on the evolution of an aeronautical infrastructure. With roots in the late 19th century, European laboratories set the pace in theoretical aeronautical research, but the NACA, established in 1915, soon evolved as one of the world’s leading aeronautical centres. The creation of specialized organizations to investigate accidents, determine the probable cause, and make recommendations to avoid repetition played a key role in the improvement of safe air travel.

In the United States, the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, a private organization, spearheaded a milestone experiment in 1928 in which the pilot’s responses to a combination of electronic signals and airplane instruments permitted the first successful “blind flight.” This technique represented a huge step forward for aviation. It meant that airlines could sustain schedules that required flying at night. It also meant that planes could fly in many weather conditions that had previously forced pilots to stay grounded or make unscheduled landings. Moreover, the Guggenheim Fund accelerated the science of meteorology for weather forecasting, codification of aeronautical law, and the establishment of college-level aeronautical engineering departments (as well as university research laboratories) that educated essential cadres of aeronautical engineers and scientists.

By the end of the 1920s, most major cities in the United States had established municipal airports. During the depression decade that followed, various New Deal government construction programs improved and built additional airfields with paved all-weather runways. Under federal guidance, major airfields also acquired control towers and radio equipment as part of an air traffic control system meant to ensure safe aircraft movements within an increasingly busy air space. With a bureaucratic framework and essential flight technologies, a basic aeronautical infrastructure had emerged. The stage was set for the introduction of truly modern airliners and their indelible impact on passenger travel.

Wartime legacies

In 1937 Japan began full-scale offensives against China; European hostilities commenced in 1939; the United States became involved in World War II in 1941. In Europe, neutral countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, and Spain hosted international routes on a limited basis, but the vagaries of war virtually ended regularly scheduled flights until the end of the conflict in 1945. The United States supplied the majority of air transports for Allied forces. The reasons for this were quite straightforward: the DC-3 had already demonstrated its virtuosity; the superior DC-4 was entering service; and the country’s prodigious production capability could satisfy most requirements. Drafted into military service, the C-47 (DC-3) and the four-engine C-54 (DC-4) became the workhorses for the U.S., Britain and its Commonwealth, and air-transport units of European governments-in-exile.

As a harbinger of things to come, the wartime achievements of the U.S. Army Air Force Air Transport Command (ATC) constituted a major step forward. The ATC became legendary during its transport services across the towering Himalayan mountain ranges (pilots called these challenging missions “flying the hump”), carrying crucial supplies to Chinese and Allied forces in the China-Burma-India theatre. More important, the ATC operated a global network, establishing airfields, communication centres, and weather-forecasting facilities that pioneered a sustained system of air transportation on an intercontinental basis. The time required to reach destinations around the world contracted dramatically, from a journey of weeks to only a few days, or, within most combat theatres, to a few hours. Transoceanic travel became a matter of routine; at its peak of operations, ATC planes crossed the Atlantic at an average rate of one every 13 minutes.

Anticipating the impact of postwar airlines, many knowledgeable authorities advocated worldwide protocols to normalize flying procedures and legal issues so as to promote an orderly implementation of foreign and intercontinental air routes. In 1944, during a historic meeting convened in Chicago, international representatives eventually agreed on a provisional administrative entity. By 1947, the full-fledged International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) had settled in Montreal as an adjunct of the new United Nations organization. The ICAO specified English as the universal language for pilots and air traffic controllers engaged in international operations. Additional protocols specified standardized formats for terminology, radio frequencies, navigational equipment, emergency procedures, runway markings, and airport lighting. Without these protocols, global air travel would have experienced a chaotic—and unacceptably dangerous—evolution.

Postwar airlines

After the war, many airlines looked for an updated DC-3 replacement to use on short-to-intermediate flights. The British built 163 copies of the portly twin-engine Vickers Viking, an unpressurized transport with 24 to 27 seats (later modified to carry 34 to 38 passengers) that cruised amiably at 200 miles (320 km) per hour over European routes and those of many Commonwealth countries. However, neither British, French, Italian, nor other European manufacturers enjoyed much success against American designs. For example, Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, more commonly known as Convair, built the speedy twin-engine 240/340/440 series, with trendy tricycle landing gear, which sold more than 1,000 models between 1947 and 1956, plus several hundred military versions that often trickled back into civil service. Convairs had a maximum cruising speed of 280 miles (450 km) per hour, and their pressurized cabins provided unaccustomed comfort for 40 to 50 passengers (depending on the model) in smaller airline markets around the world. Subsequent turboprop conversions kept the type in service for several decades.

During this period, the Soviet Union considered both practicality and politics for its extensive Aeroflot internal network. In the late 1930s, the country had acquired a state-of-the-art transport by signing a license agreement to build the Douglas DC-3, equipped with Soviet engines. Although numerous examples continued to serve in the postwar years, they were eventually succeeded by the Ilyushin Il-12, a trim unpressurized twin-engine transport that also featured retractable tricycle landing gear. A larger model, the Il-14, went into operation during the 1950s. Considered slow and technologically unsophisticated by modern standards, these planes played an ideological role in the Cold War by parrying Western imports. Production took place in communist-bloc countries; the Il-12 and Il-14 series numbered into the thousands, serving as military transports as well as the backbone for Aeroflot operations and civil duties in eastern Europe. They operated in China and were supplied to governments in Africa and Asia, where the Soviets wished to expand their influence.

The Il-12 and Il-14 transports had cruising speeds of about 200 miles (320 km) per hour and could carry 27 to 32 passengers over routes of up to 300 miles (480 km). Across the length and breadth of the Soviet Union, this seemingly modest performance served quite well. Every region of the country included cities and towns that often lacked both rail services and the benefits of all-weather roads. Rivers often offered a good alternative transport route, but long Russian winters and generally challenging conditions usually meant that they were frozen solid or characterized by seasonal floods and shifting navigational channels. Consequently, the schedules of Aeroflot—with its subsidized bargain-basement fares—constituted the only reasonably reliable transport and communication links throughout the year. Large long-range transports fulfilled the immediate—and crucial—need for timely, practical travel arrangements that bound thousands of large and small population centres to each other and to national passenger networks. The sturdy Il-12 and Il-14 transports could still be seen at airports through the 1980s.

After 1945, Douglas introduced its pressurized DC-6 to match the Lockheed Constellation on domestic and international routes. As they energetically courted sales to rival foreign airlines, American manufacturers constantly engaged in back-and-forth contests to improve their products. Since the North American market for airliners generated high-volume production, unit costs remained low, and they became highly competitive when priced against European transports. Eventually, the performance, quality, and value of postwar American designs led to their dominating presence in the airline fleets of major carriers overseas. Hoping to capture market share, Boeing utilized major components from the B-29 bomber and the C-97 cargo/tanker aircraft in building the Stratocruiser, a plane that offered unmatched luxury for air travelers in the late 1940s and early ’50s. Its famously spacious cabin seated 55 passengers, and its bar/lounge, entered through a spiral staircase to the lower deck, created a sensation. Pan Am and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) quickly introduced Stratocruisers on premier routes across the North Atlantic. However, even the Stratocruiser faded against better, faster piston-engine airliners from Douglas and Lockheed.

But transcontinental schedules in the United States invariably included a stop for fuel en route; transatlantic flights between New York and Europe usually required refueling in Newfoundland, Iceland, or Ireland. These constraints began to evaporate in the 1950s with the Lockheed Super Constellation and the Douglas DC-7. The ultimate versions appeared in 1956–57 as the DC-7C, known as the “Seven Seas,” which was capable of nonstop transatlantic flights in either direction, and the Lockheed 1649A Starliner, which could fly nonstop on polar routes from Los Angeles to Europe. The Starliner carried 75 passengers at speeds of 350 to 400 miles (560 to 640 km) per hour. Each of its Wright turbocompound radial engines developed 3,400 horsepower. Prior to the introduction of jet transports, these stalwart aircraft transformed the dynamics of air travel and continued in service with major airlines into the late 1960s.

Travel remained a stylish experience. Men donned coats and ties; ladies appeared in hats and dresses. Airports featured first-class restaurants; airline cabin service featured crystal stemware and quality china. Until the 1950s, airline patrons characteristically traveled on a first-class basis, and fares remained relatively high until increased patronage paved the way for decreased prices. As early as 1953, domestic airlines in the United States reported more passenger miles than railroad Pullman travel. Before the end of the year, statistics revealed that airlines had also taken the lead as the prime mover for American travelers making trips of more that 200 miles (320 km). By 1958 the majority of U.S. passengers headed for Europe chose to go by plane rather than by ocean liner. Cabin-class seats proliferated on airliners, and fares dropped accordingly. Even before the advent of jet airliners, piston-engine transports had usurped traditional railway and steamship technology as the principal mode of transport for long-distance trips. Domestically, convenient airline timetables enabled professional and collegiate sports teams to play tightly scheduled games on a nationwide basis. Airline business travel in the United States and overseas exploded. Piston-engine airliners made weekend ski trips and foreign excursions possible for thousands of middle-income individuals who could finally fit a 10-day European holiday into the time frame and budget of their annual vacation. As sociologist Max Lerner observed, postwar airways led to the democratization of American—and global—travel.

General aviation

Following World War I, a number of adventurous pilots began using airplanes for “utility aviation”—commercial photography, surveying, law enforcement, agricultural purposes such as seeding and crop dusting, and myriad other activities. In the United States, huge numbers of war-surplus engines and training aircraft, as well as larger planes such as the DH-4, offered a cheap and easy way to enter the flying business. Although barnstormers and acrobatic fliers all too often tarnished the image of aviation by performing foolhardy stunts in worn-out military castoffs, the phenomenon of utility aviation attracted increasing numbers of users. By the late 1920s, as the supply of war surplus aircraft and engines dried up, new companies began to offer improved engines and planes, including aircraft with enclosed cabins that could seat two to five people, bringing an end to open cockpits, helmets, goggles, and considerable engine noise.

Throughout the 1930s, despite the Great Depression, improvements continued, and the practice of using personal aircraft to conduct business became a recognized aspect of modern commerce, especially as American industry continued its pattern of geographic diversity and scattered divisions. In order to save time and expensive personnel costs, business aviation provided the means to deliver key people to locations where airlines did not fly and road or rail travel was indirect and time-consuming. Among the most popular private aircraft models were the two-seat Piper Cub, powered by a 65-horsepower engine that enabled a cruising speed of about 85 miles (140 km) per hour; the four-seat Cessna Airmaster, powered by a 145–165-horsepower engine that enabled a cruising speed of about 160 miles (260 km) per hour; and the seven to nine passenger Beechcraft Model 18, powered by two 450-horsepower engines that enabled a cruising speed of about 220 miles (350 km) per hour. Cessna and Beechcraft still used radial-piston engines, but Piper relied on a horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine that allowed engineers to design a more streamlined engine nacelle. This type of engine became the preferred style for modern light-plane designs.

Other developments included Igor Sikorsky’s work on practical piston-engine helicopters. Technological precedents in the 1930s included the autogyro, which used an unpowered rotor for lift and a piston engine with propeller for forward flight, but they could not match the helicopter’s ability for vertical flight and hovering. Postwar efforts to fly helicopters as short-haul passenger transports foundered, although they became invaluable in specialized missions (medevac, police patrol, traffic monitoring) and in sundry utility roles. However, compared with fixed-wing aircraft, their numbers remained small.

After World War II, the accelerating demand for personal and utility aircraft gave rise to the term general aviation to describe all flying that did not fall into the category of military or scheduled air transport. Manufacturers such as Piper, Cessna, and Beechcraft represented an expanding “light plane industry,” although the general aviation sector included a host of modified aircraft that ranged from war surplus twin-engine Douglas A-26 bombers (rebuilt with luxury passenger cabins as fast, corporate transports) to four-engine DC-4 transports (reequipped with big internal fuselage tanks to dump retardants on forest fires). For the light plane builders, engine manufacturers such as Lycoming, Continental, and others perfected efficient horizontally opposed piston engines that produced from 65 to more than 200 horsepower; mass production made them dominant in international applications; several appeared as turbo-supercharged designs delivering more than 300 horsepower.

Various engines powered a bewildering variety of postwar light planes, although Piper, Cessna, and Beechcraft led the market. Through the 1950s, Piper and Cessna marketed high-wing monoplanes with two to four seats, suitable for short-range personal business flying. Beechcraft introduced the stylish all-metal V-tailed Bonanza, with retractable landing gear, higher speed, and a roomy four-place cabin. Manufacturers installed a new generation of compact lightweight radio communication and navigational equipment (eventually dubbed avionics) that improved options to fly during bad weather. Eventually, all three manufacturers produced twin-engine aircraft, aimed at business travel, that could carry four to six people in more comfort at faster speeds. These designs eventually progressed into “cabin-class” corporate transports with supercharged engines, flown by a pilot and copilot, luxury accommodations for four to eight passengers in a pressurized cabin, a lavatory, and a door with a built-in stairway.

Although aircraft produced in the United States dominated the worldwide general aviation fleet, designs from other countries also won a significant market and became essential cogs in the economies of numerous global regions. Canada, with a long history of aircraft used in wilderness flying, produced a rugged example known as the Beaver, built by De Havilland’s Canadian firm. With a big radial engine of 450 horsepower (or more), the high-wing Beaver could carry six to seven people (often more), or about 1,700 pounds (770 kg) of payload (usually more). The Beaver’s moderate size allowed pilots to maneuver the plane in and out of primitive abbreviated airstrips. Fitted with either floats or skis, depending on the locale and season, Beavers could reach virtually any point in Canada’s wilderness of forests, lakes, and Arctic terrain. De Havilland built 1,692 of these remarkably adaptable aircraft, and they served in 63 countries, ranging from tropical climes to polar regions.

The Soviet Union produced an aircraft of similar versatility, the Antonov AN-2. With its 1,000-horsepower radial engine, the AN-2 possessed a capacious barrel-like fuselage that could accommodate a dozen or so passengers or 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) of cargo. Introduced in 1947, it featured a biplane configuration, and its large wing area gave it excellent flying characteristics for low-level agricultural applications—its principal intended function. But the AN-2’s ability to operate from the isolated and rugged airstrips that dotted the Soviet Union made it a classic all-purpose airplane. In many remote areas such as Siberia, the AN-2 flew Aeroflot’s colours as a local and short-haul passenger transport as well as cargo hauler and air ambulance. With more than 5,000 produced in Ukraine by the late 1950s, followed by approximately 11,900 in Poland during the 1960s, the AN-2 not only served throughout the Soviet bloc but also appeared in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Within the Soviet bloc, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia built a variety of other general aviation types, including agricultural models.

In Great Britain, Beagle Aircraft Ltd. enjoyed some success in the 1960s. The distinctive name represented an acronym derived from British Executive and General Aviation Limited. Although several dozen airplanes entered service, they could not compete with their well-equipped counterparts from American manufacturers, whose products were backed by efficient international dealer networks. Other companies that produced planes for corporate use and small “feeder” airlines fared better. The twin-engine De Havilland (later, Hawker Siddeley) Dove arrived in 1945 as a low-wing design with retractable gear and a capacity for 11 passengers. It remained in production through the 1960s, with 554 Doves built, including 200 for military operators. The second aircraft was the Britten-Norman Islander, with headquarters located on the Isle of Wight. Designed as an up-to-date replacement for obsolete types such as the Dove, the twin-engine Islander debuted in the mid-1960s. Along with modern avionics, it featured a high wing and fixed gear, and its metal construction followed simple, easily fabricated lines with seats for nine passengers, keeping its cost to about one-third that of the Dove and similar planes. The Islander sold well, although its production sites tended to hopscotch around the world, including fabrication sites in Romania as well as the Philippines. Further modifications to the original design involved a remarkable stretch of the fuselage to accommodate the pilot and one passenger on the flight deck and 16 passengers in the main cabin and a redesigned wing and tail assembly. With its highly distinctive third piston engine mounted atop the vertical tail rudder, it became the Tri-Islander. Still flying in the 21st century, the various Islanders served effectively in many thinly populated areas having geographical constraints, such as the Caribbean, and carried thousands of passengers there and elsewhere around the world.

The French were also busy producing light planes to compete with American products. As in Britain, dozens of types came and went during the postwar decades. Among those with staying power, factory-built aircraft designed for sale in kit form enjoyed lively sales, although many of them remained partially completed and moldering away in basements, garages, and barns. In 1966 an extensive realignment of French manufacturers led to the formation of Société de Construction d’Avions de Tourisme et d’Affaires, or Socata. The new company continued to build the proven Rallye, a trim two-passenger monoplane, but achieved notable success with its own range of larger, more powerful single-engine business planes with retractable gear. By the 1990s, the performance and reliability of the Socata Tobago and Trinidad series had made them serious competitors in the North American market.

Through the 1960s, piston-engine airliners still played a major role in air travel, and their ubiquitous counterparts in general aviation enlivened the aeronautical scene. In 1969 commercial airlines counted about 2,500 transports; 122,500 aircraft represented the general aviation fleet. The subsequent impact of gas-turbine engines transformed both categories. Older piston-engine airliners often soldiered on as firefighting tankers, while many others shuttled passengers and cargo from remote airfields to various destinations. Myriads of piston-powered light planes continue to populate the airways everywhere. The grand epoch of piston-engine aircraft may have waned, but their story continues.